As I said yesterday, I planned to get my day's goal of a single extroverted interaction done before getting to work. I thought it'd set a great tone for the day and I knew if I didn't do it as soon as I possibly could I ran the risk of chickening out. It took me two tries but I finally had a fairly solid discussion.
Walking out of my apartment I started getting a bit nervous. I was building up the whole event in my head examining different possibilities for the different kind of people i might run into and what I could talk to them about.
"If it's a guy, what do I say? I don't like sports so right off the bat I'm at a disadvantage. Worst yet, what if it's a woman? I may not have much in common with most men but I definitely can relate more to a guy than a woman. What if she thinks I'm flirting? What if she's attractive and I am flirting, albeit, pathetically? What if it's either gender and they just look at me like STFU? What if..?"
Finally I caught myself stressing me out about it. Took a couple breaths to slow down my heart rate and relax. I was so afraid of failure that it was going to become crippling very soon.
The great thing about failure is that it's so relative. While I was pretty sure I would fail at entertaining or impressing someone I was pretty confident I could easily annoy or inconvenience someone. By flipping my motivation around I was able to turn something I couldn't do, into something I could do. The real power of this technique is that my planned course of action remains constant, which is to say I don't plan on intentionally annoying anyone. It's a head trick to enable me to enjoy the outcome of this experiment no matter where my results fall in the continuum of possible outcomes (whether it be absolute rejection or a whole hearted welcoming). I do think I should work on a more positive way of viewing this but at the same time... if someone gets angry with me or mean for my being nice, I will kinda enjoy that I pissed them off. Pfft.
Baby Steps
By the time I'm done thinking through all of this I'm down the elevator and walking out of the parking garage heading towards my bus stop. I figure out a weak pre-canned conversation starter. I figure I'll ask the person for the time/how long they've been waiting at the bus stop (I've got my phone but they don't know that!). If they only respond with the time and don't reciprocate the conversation I'm working my ass off for then I figure I'll give a little explanation bout why I wanted to know. A guy at a bus stop was able to get a conversation going with me using this technique so I figured I'd try it out as well.
As I'm nearing the bus stop I see that there's a guy sitting down and waiting already (the buses come so often there's almost always someone waiting). I feel a sudden stab of nervousness as I walk past him to position myself to wait for the bus. I make eye contact with a smile and blurt out, "Hi." He reciprocates. So far so good!
For you extroverts who might read this, I am completely aware of how sad it might seem that saying "Hi" is a personal accomplishment. Make no mistake about it, it is still a big deal for me. Some of you who know me might say, "Pshh, yah right. You're always talkative and loud." To you I respond, yes, with my friends or only with great effort. Anyway, I digress.
He says "Hi." back in a friendly tone, though my heart is still palpitating I decide I can move on to the next phase. "So, how long you been waiting for the bus?"
"About like two minutes." He says looking up at me from his seat on the bench. So I say "Oh ok cool, so it might be a few more minutes." He's distracted and trying to rifle through his backpack, gathering some pills. The conversation is dead... I'm letting the conversation die. This is too difficult. I need a give and take. Maybe once I get good at this stuff I can wring a convo out of someone but I don't want that kind of challenge right now. Still, I'm proud of myself. I find myself thinking that I hope I get another good chance and that I didn't blow my one opportunity to meet my goal.
A Kindred Spirit
By the time I find someone new to talk to, I've been on the bus for a few minutes reading my favorite new book "How to Prove It" (Seriously I'm loving this book). Anyway, so here I am reading, minding my own business when a woman sits next to me on the bus. I look up, give a quick smile and notice she's got a 1st generation iPhone. Now I've got something I can talk about! All it takes is a slight bit of probing, "So you still have one of the first generation iPhones huh?" and she's talking like a long lost friend. She was strangely receptive.
Once she pauses I give her a personal account of my experience with my new one. She rallies back with some more talk. The convo is wilting but I am ok with that. This is really as far as I was looking to go for the day and I even talked to two strangers. So I gave myself a break and let the conversation die.
Seriously, could it be that many people are this easy to talk to? I just have to show them I have a shared interest and I won't be able to shut them up? This has put an idea, or a hypothesis if you will, into my mind. That societal introversion and giving off the sense of being off-putting may just be defense mechanisms for dealing with people rejecting you. I know it is for me. I mean there are some people on the bus I don't want to talk to (like the guy who was acting like a werewolve hitting himself and his seat, or the guy who cornered me in front of an attractive chick and asked me if I thought she was cute with me blushing all the while, etc, etc, ET-frickin-CETER-weird-bus-riders-RA).
My biggest fear now is that I'll become one of those weirdos on the bus who is all TOO comfortable talking to strangers. Acting himself a damn fool and not even realizing it. I guess as long as I'm self-conscious about it I don't need to worry.
Where to from here?
Tomorrow, I need to do at least this good. It's all about continuous improvement. Ideally, I'd like to have another conversation (a bit longer this time) and get to the point where first names are necessary. Realistically, that's my goal for the week (including the weekend). I'll keep writing daily, though probably not this long of a post since this has taken about an hour to write and I can't imagine having the constitution to continue this given my current schedule, let alone once my classes start next week.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll have something more embarrassing for you. ;)
